Category promotion & publicity | JON F. MERZ • Official • Author / Actor / Producer

May 25, 2012May 25, 2012 by Jon F. Merz

THE NINJA APPRENTICE Heads to Africa

By Jon F. Merz

I am very pleased to announce that I have signed on with Worldreader.org to donate copies of THE NINJA APPRENTICE to their amazing program that brings e-readers and ebooks to children living in under-developed regions in Africa. Worldreader distributes Amazon Kindles to the children and then Amazon “pushes” the free ebooks to the kids, who get to choose books to read on them for free. It boosts literacy, aids in their education, and their ability to improve their station in life. I heard about this organization, based in Seattle and Barcelona, yesterday and knew I wanted to get involved. It took no time whatsoever, and now thousands of kids will get a chance to read about Jimmy’s wild and crazy adventures as he tries to restore his family’s honor. Worldreader has already sent 100,000 ebooks to these kids and their aiming for ONE MILLION.

Worldreader has partnered with many publishers and authors to help expand their programs in Ghana, Uganda, and Kenya and soon Rwanda. After launching, they soon found some pretty dramatic effects: “After 9 months the biggest gains were realized from the 4-5th graders; in 8 months kids were reading 50% more in volume, their rate of reading increased by 30% when measured by wpm and they were excited about great content… win win win!!! Textbooks – novels – the Atlas – all kinds of knowledge and information. ”

So awesome. And this is just one more indicator of the technological shift away from paper. This program would not have been possible using printed books. It’s only with e-readers and ebooks that such a thing is possible. I’m grateful to be able to contribute in this small way and hopefully give those kids a fun, exciting read. I don’t know how many Ninjutsu practitioners there are in Africa (outside of South Africa, which has a few dojo) but there might be several more once these kids meet Jimmy!

If you’re an author with middle grade to YA fiction and would like to help out, make sure you have the rights to your work or that your publisher is interested in participating, and then contact Michael Smith at Worldreader.org. For authors, it’s a simple, one-page contract – quick and easy. For me, it was a no-brainer to get involved and do some good. I hope my writer friends feel the same. Writer & non-writer friends can also head to the Worldreader.org website and donate money or get involved to help them send more Kindles to the kids in Africa.

May 23, 2012 by Jon F. Merz

Clone Your EBook Success

By Jon F. Merz

Imagine if you were a corporation and you sold several products, one of which sold better than any of the others. That one product was responsible for bringing in more revenue than any of your other products. Looking at your numbers each month would hammer that home and probably make you wish there was a way to clone that product so you could double the revenue it brought in. Or pretend you make good money at your job and wished there was a way to double that income. Before, you’d have to take on a second job, but you could only do so much until you burned out. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day.

For writers, books have traditionally had this feature built in to them. When you sold North American rights, you, as the author (or your agent), could then turn around and sell those rights to foreign publishers who would translate the book and bring it out in whatever market they operated in. Many times, the sale of foreign rights brings in staggering sums for bestselling authors and much more modest sums for midlist authors. Perhaps the book earns out enough to generate royalties, but that isn’t often the case.

With the advent of ebooks, however, the author has far more control over that “cloning” process. Entrepreneurial authors – or as I like to call them “authorpreneurs” – who view their writing careers as a business will be keen to capitalize on the incredible potential that now exists. Let’s take a look at it in-depth.

This is the cover for the Spanish-language edition of the first book in the Lawson Vampire series, THE FIXER. EL EJECUTOR is nearly finished being translated by a fantastic friend of mine and should be on-sale the first week of June. THE FIXER consistently sells hundreds of copies each month on its own and its impact on my bottom line is huge. It is a solid earner, and as such, I want to clone that success. So I paid to have it translated into Spanish, which is one of the largest market demographics in the world. According to recent statistics, upwards of half a BILLION people speak the language globally. That’s a market I want a piece of!

The translation costs were an investment into my business. In order to make money cloning the success of THE FIXER, I had to first invest the capital to pay for its translation. I consider that money well spent. As more and more people turn to ebooks, the number of people who will start reading my Lawson series will also climb. And if the series is available in multiple languages, then I can exponentially increase my profit potential on each book I write. After several months of strong sales, the translation cost will be earned back and then the real fun starts.

Here’s one of the coolest things: even though El Ejecutor is written in Spanish, it will be available in every single one of Amazon’s Kindle stores. Think about that for a moment. Using the old business model of publishing, if you sold Spanish rights to your novels, then the books would only be available wherever the publisher had distribution. But with Amazon, El Ejecutor will be available in the US for Spanish-speakers, in Amazon ES, their official Spain site, as well as Amazon UK, France, Germany, Italy, and many more coming down the road. So now instead of a fragmented distribution that used to happen with foreign rights sales, you have the SAME global distribution that you do with a book written in English. Suppose there’s a Mexican ex-pat living abroad in Italy, for example, and he wishes he could read something in his native tongue but can only surf for ebooks on Amazon’s Italian website? No problem, El Ejecutor is sitting right there ready to be bought. BAM! Sold!

The point is, with Amazon’s global storefront you not only have the opportunity to get your translated ebooks into the hands of the particular demographic you’re trying to reach in their home country, you can also reach them wherever they might be across the world! This is huge. It increases your chances of finding new readers in places you might not expect. Whereas before if you had a book out in Germany, you might only reasonably expect to find it in German bookstores and perhaps a few specialty shops here and there. Now, you can have that same ebook available to Germans in Germany as well as Germans anywhere else in the world – or at least anywhere else Amazon has a storefront at this moment. (But believe me, Amazon will soon have storefronts everywhere…)

You are truly cloning your success when you get your ebooks translated. And each time you add a new translation, you’ve just cloned it again. Instead of doubling your profit potential, you can triple it, quadruple it, and so much more. And you don’t have to worry about earning out advances, reserves against returns, or any of the other stupid antiquated business machinations left over from the decaying publishing industry. Amazon pays you net 60 days every single month via direct deposit. You’ve just potentially doubled your money without having to do anything beyond the translation! No extra work, you don’t have to write the novel again, you don’t have to devote any extra time. Translated. Done.

To say I’m excited about debuting THE FIXER in Spanish is an incredible understatement. I’m beyond excited. I don’t know how sales will go, obviously, but ebooks are a long-term investment. They earn forever. And as more and more people flock to ebooks, the profits will continue to escalate. Once the initial investment in translation has been earned out, that ebook goes on to provide income – passive income at that – forever.

And that ain’t too shabby.

in Build a Bestseller / common sense / ebooks / how I write / lawson / novels / promotion & publicity / publishing / Uncategorized / vampires / writing 0 comments

May 18, 2012May 18, 2012 by Jon F. Merz

The Greatest Fans In The World…

By Jon F. Merz

Last night I had the opportunity to interact with my fans on a whole new level – a virtual author event that brought video conferencing to a whole new level. Shindig, a company based in New York City, hosted me on its incredible platform that can handle thousands of guests in multiple rooms, as well as show video clips, pictures, and more all during the event. It’s a fantastic way for authors, musicians, TV folks, and producers to get in touch with fans and drive interest and buzz around their projects. After trying it last night for the first time, I can’t recommend it highly enough. It’s easy-to-use and the learning curve is remarkably slight.

I’ve been pushing this event for about a month now and really cranked it up these last few days. We had a ton of RSVPs and around 50 people showed up for the actual event. I spoke for about 25 minutes on where Lawson came from, the evolution of the series, the trials and tribulations of publishing, and then into the production of THE FIXER TV series. And then I hit the audience with a never-before-seen clip from the show itself. 54 seconds of the flavor, feel, and look of the show and the whole cast. It was awesome seeing the reactions on the faces of the attendees as they watched and the feedback was immediate and intense. I’m still getting emails about it. Suffice it to say, THE FIXER is really going to blow socks off when we debut the pilot.

After the clip, I had a Q&A session and fielded questions on everything from cover art to ebooks to the cast from THE FIXER to my latest project THE NINJA APPRENTICE. And when folks had a question, the Shindig platform allowed them to “come up on stage” with me if they had a web camera operational and actually share the cyber spotlight. Otherwise, folks could type in questions and the moderator Eric would relay them to me.

This was new ground, but if you read yesterday’s post on creating your own opportunities, you’d see how this all dovetails together. I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to hold this event if I hadn’t heard about it from my good friend who is very much in the same mindset as me about exploring new avenues and chances for exposure and success. Shindig is new technology and I think it’s incredible stuff.

The best part of last night was getting the chance to meet some of my many fans. And seeing the folks who showed up really made it clear just how lucky I am to be able to do this for a living. The time slot was tough on some folks’ schedules and a lot of my fans couldn’t make it. But despite the fact that they missed the event, they still wrote and told me how much they wished they could have been there. And that means the world to me.

I’ve often said that my fans are truly the greatest people in the world. I mean that. Some attendees last night were actually at work; some were in other parts of the world where it was either late at night or in the very wee hours of the morning; and still others had rushed home from work to attend. We had media in attendance as well as one or two high-level executives in some very interesting companies. It was a very impressive array of people in the audience and being able to speak to them was an honor and a privilege.

So thank you to everyone – ALL of my fans – whether you made it last night or not. I know you’re out there and I want you to know that I sincerely appreciate you counting yourself among my readers, fans, and friends. You’re the best. Absolutely, unequivocally the best.

We’ll do more of these events in the future and I can’t wait to meet even more of you face-to-face. Have a fantastic weekend and thank you again!

🙂

in Build a Bestseller / ebooks / film/TV / how I write / lawson / novels / production crew / promotion & publicity / publishing / THE FIXER TV series / Uncategorized / vampires / website / writing 0 comments

April 23, 2012April 24, 2012 by Jon F. Merz

Break Out Your Video Camera…

Because I’m going to give away TWO brand new Kindle Touch 3Gs at the end of May 2012.

Want one? Here’s the deal: May 2012 is the 10th Anniversary of Lawson’s debut in print (THE FIXER – book 1 in the series came out in May 2002) and I’m looking for the coolest, most creatively awesome videos – made by my fans – to help spread the word about the entire Lawson universe – the books, the TV series, and much more. if I pick your video as one of the two best, you’ll win a brand new Kindle Touch 3G. It’s that simple.

A couple of rules, though:

1. Videos must be under 3 minutes – preferably about two minutes so you don’t bore your viewers.
2. Videos must contain images from anything related to Lawson – book covers, screen grabs from The Fixer, etc. Anything related to Lawson and The Fixer is available for use.
3. Videos may NOT contain any copyrighted images, video, or music. In other words, don’t set your video to a Barry Manilow tune unless you happen to own the rights to use that song.
4. Videos must have a general theme along the lines of “Why I Love the Lawson Vampire Series by Jon F. Merz” It doesn’t have to be exactly like this; you could say something like “I’m rabid for Lawson” or something like that.
5. Videos must be uploaded to both Youtube and to my Facebook Fan Page in order to qualify. For Youtube videos, please be sure to use keywords like “lawson vampire, the fixer, jon f. merz, ebooks, lawson vampire ebooks” etc. etc.
6. By entering this contest you are granting me permission to use your video in any way that I see fit, for as long as I like, wherever I like, without any sort of compensation or payment. Ownership will remain yours, but I’m free to use it as much as I like. (see fine print below)
7. Contest is open to anyone, anywhere. There is no fee to enter; the only requirement is a love of Lawson and his many ebooks.
8. Entries MUST be work-safe, which means no foul language, obscene material, etc.

That’s basically it. So get out there and be creative. Start a Lawson flash mob in a crowded subway station. Interview yourself talking about why Lawson is so awesome. Create a computer animation with the book covers and screenshots. Tell the world why Lawson is so awesome and why everyone should be reading the series and getting ready for the TV show. Include links to the books on Amazon (http://amzn.to/lawsonbks) and/or the Nook (http://bit.ly/lawsonv) if you like. Put a link to the Facebook fan Page if you want (http://on.fb.me/jfmfans) or come up with other ingenious ways to promote Lawson and his many adventures.

I have no idea how many people will enter this contest, so the odds might be pretty good. Videos don’t have to be shot in HD or anything like that. Hell, you could cut it together with video clips shot by a smart phone – just make sure it rocks and helps promote Lawson and his adventures. Final decisions on the winning entries will be made by me and me alone. Winners will be announced no later than June 6th, 2012 and they will receive their new Kindles within a few weeks of the announcement.

And if you haven’t read my Lawson series yet, then go get some of the books and discover the exciting mayhem that awaits! Kindle users go here! | Nook users go here! | iBooks users go here!

Excited? Then get to work! All entries MUST be received by May 16th, 2012. That’s three weeks from now. You are free to enter as many videos as you wish, but make sure they rock. I’d rather have one kick-ass entry than five mediocre ones.

Lawson’s 10th Year Anniversary – May 2012…and you just might win a brand new Kindle!

FINE PRINT:

Copyright
All Entries submitted to the Contest must be original. You must be the sole owner of any copyright and all other intellectual property rights in and to any Entry submitted. Your submission of each Entry is your acknowledgement, warranty and guarantee that you are the author, creator and/ or sole owner of copyright(s) and other intellectual property rights in and to the Entry submitted. By submitting an Entry, you also represent and warrant that the Entries that you submit do not infringe on the copyright, right of publicity, privacy rights or any other intellectual property or other right of any other persons or entity, that you have secured any and all waivers and permissions necessary with respect to persons and subject matter in the Entry and that you have not submitted the Entry to any other contest. If the ownership of any Entry is contested in any manner, the Sponsor may disqualify that Entry. By submitting an Entry you agree to hold harmless and indemnify Jon F. Merz for any breach of these Official Rules and/or your representations and warranties made hereunder.

Rights of Use
You shall retain the copyright to any Entry and all other rights thereto EXCEPT: by entering the Contest, you agree to have your submitted Entry displayed by Sponsor on Sponsor’s website without any fee or other form of compensation. In addition, you hereby grant an unlimited royalty free license to the Sponsor to copy, display, perform, store, broadcast, distribute or otherwise use your Entry for any purpose. You agree that the Sponsor will not be liable to you or to any third party for any use, editing, adaptation, modification and/or publication of any Entry.

Publicity and Advertising
Except where prohibited, participation in the Contest constitutes irrevocable consent to the Sponsor and their agents to use, record reproduce, publish, display, perform, translate, and distribute, the names, likeness, voices, quotations, opinions and biographical information of Entrant, including, without limitation, any photograph or recording for promotional purposes in any media, worldwide, without further payment or consideration; and the name, likeness, voice and biographical information of any natural person appearing in the Entry, including without limitation any photograph or recording, for any promotional purpose in any media, worldwide, and/or for any other commercial or non-commercial corporate purpose, including without limitation use on merchandise or for marketing, without attribution or further payment or compensation to the Entrant, his or her successors or assigns or any other entity.

in ebooks / gifts / lawson / promotion & publicity / publishing / THE FIXER TV series / vampires / writing 0 comments

April 10, 2012April 10, 2012 by Jon F. Merz

Facebook Page Timeline Tips for Authors – Part 2

About a month ago, I wrote up a blog post detailing how all pages on Facebook would be converted to the new Timeline design come March 30th. Along with this, I presented some tips on how to maximize an effective use of Timeline for authors, and closed by promising another post with more tips in the next week.

Well, a month has passed, but I finally got back around to it. 🙂

If you haven’t read the first post, go back and read it since it gives you a foundation for what I detail in this post.

1. Okay, now I told that FBML was going away as of June and it was a good idea to convert over to Static HTML: iFrames Tab app now. I also told you that Static HTML: iFrames Tab didn’t inherit the styling of fonts that the old FBML tab did. In other words, if you’ve been experimenting with the design, your fonts probably do not match the rest of your Facebook page. If you go to your page and open that tab, you’ll see whatever coding you put there. In order to inherit the styling from the rest of your page and make it look all good and “Facebooky,” add these lines to the very top of your code:

This links your tab to the CSS style sheets that set the rest of Facebook. There’s probably only one of these applicable to your page, but I couldn’t figure out which one it was, so I included them all. There’s no harm in having them all there, so no worries. Once you insert those lines, your tab should look exactly like the rest of your page.

2. Tabs: Using the new Timeline feature gives you a bit more flexibility when it comes to tabs, which are positioned directly under your cover photo. You can also design unique graphics for your tabs that look better than having random graphic images up there. Four tabs are displayed immediately when your page loads and you can have up to four more under those that users need to click the down arrow to see.

Designing your tabs is easy. The dimensions are 111 pixels wide by 74 pixels high. Open your graphic program of choice and design a nice eye-catching graphic to use as each tab. If you look at the screenshot below of my tabs, you’ll see that my Welcome! Tab has a bright red picture of a movie ticket that says “free admission” on it.

I used this because it’s bold and gives a clear message. Highly-detailed graphics are not going to work here, so be simple and bold.

Once you’ve settled on the design, you’ll need to upload it and make it active on your page. Go to the top of your Admin Panel, and click on “Manage.” Then click “edit page.” A new screen will come up. On the left side, look down and see “Apps,” and then click on that. A list of your Apps will now show up on the screen. Since my Welcome! tab was created using Static HTML: iFrame Tabs, that’s where I need to go. Click on “edit settings.” A small pop-up will show on your screen that looks like this:

Most importantly, make sure it says “Tab: Added” so you’re sure it’s displaying on the Page itself. Next see where it says at the bottom “custom tab name.” Put whatever you want in that space and then click “save.” I recommend something nice and friendly like “Welcome!” But you could have it say anything like “My Books” or what have you.

Then you’ll want to click above that where it says “custom tab image.” This is where you will upload your custom 111×74 image. So click on that and a new window/tab opens. Follow the instructions and you should then see your new image upload and display. When you’re finished, make sure you go back to your page and see that it’s displaying properly. Up until a few weeks ago, there was a bug in the system that caused everyone else who had uploaded a custom image to display on your page instead of what you uploaded. It was annoying but Facebook seems to have fixed the problem.

3. Tab Placement: Did you know you can move your tabs around to some extent? You can. Look at the screenshot above of my cover photo and tabs again. On the right side where my tabs are located, you’ll see a 2 with a down arrow next to it. This means there are two other tabs below the top four and users can click those to access more info, pages, etc. If you click that, you will see all the tabs displayed.

And now if you hover over each tab in the upper right hand corner, you’ll see a pencil. Click on that pencil and the first thing you’ll see is “swap position with” followed by a few choices. So if you’re not happy with where your welcome tab is, you can move it to a better position. Just be advised that Facebook wants your Photos first and foremost on your Tab menu. Presumably because Photos are one of Facebook’s most active features. Remember that: be sure you have a bunch of photos uploaded to your page. I take screenshots of my works-in-progress (usually a good juicy page that users can read and get excited about) and post those from time-to-time.

Be sure to put your most important information Tabs up top and leave the lesser important stuff below. My top tabs are Photos, Welcome!, Likes, and Top Fans (see below), while my lesser important (but still fun) tabs are Events and Videos.

4. Top Fans: if you’re an author you’ve got to be interacting with your fans. There’s no other way. And if you want to really get your fans excited and active, then the Top Fans app is truly spectacular. I’ve been using this for a few weeks now when I saw it on my friend Chris Penn’s page and the results have been great. Top Fans integrates seamlessly with your Facebook Page once you sign up. They have a professional version for $29 bucks per month that gives you a lot more options. For me, I stick to the FREE version right now and I’m still blown away by it.

Basically, the app tracks fan participation on your page. Fans acquire points by liking, commenting, sharing and posting on your page. A running leader board of the top 25 fans provides a wonderful graphic interface that spurs people to take action. I took it a step further and announced that each month’s winner will receive a special T-shirt only available to Top Fans. I had the logo below designed that I’ll be using for the shirts.

It rewards fans for being active, increases your visibility elsewhere on Facebook, and leads to more fans, and more readers. In return, the T-shirt is cool and helps spread the word even more. Seriously, get Top Fans installed on your page today and watch how people respond. It’s fantastic. And I made sure to move the Top Fans tab to a prominent position on my page so people can see it immediately.

In closing, make sure that if you have a custom tab, that you really use it to maximum effect. My Welcome! Tab has a quick message from me, a picture, and newsletter sign-up form, and links to buy my ebooks at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Critical stuff all laid out on one tab.

One final tidbit, while you no longer have the ability to make a special landing page to direct people to on your Page, each Tab has its own unique URL. And that means instead of just directing people to the page itself, you can direct them right to your special Tab. Use a URL shortening service to create custom URLs for your Tabs and it will be easier to track and share.

I hope you’ve found this useful. If so, please come by My Facebook Page and click the ol’ LIKE button, will ya? 🙂 And be sure to share this article with any of your author pals. Trust me, there aren’t nearly enough writers making the most of their Facebook pages. 🙁

Thanks for reading!

in ebooks / promotion & publicity / publishing / Uncategorized / website 0 comments

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